Customers in the independent Shakespeare and Company bookshop, Paris.
Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

Supporting bookshops is one of the few issues on which both sides of the French parliament more or less agree. On 3 October they passed a bill to update a 1981 law that set a fixed-price system for books.

The original aim of the revision was to stop sellers including postage in the price of books, but in its final draft the amendment stipulates that retailers cannot combine the currently allowed 5% discount on new books with free post and packaging. At present only two online companies – Amazon and Fnac – apply this two-tier reduction.

There was heated debate between the government and the conservative MP Christian Kert who tabled the bill. "The government has been in a pickle all along, because they support the bill," centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) MPs joked. But the Socialists (PS) were nevertheless determined to vote against the opposition bill as it stood. When agreement was finally reached on the amendment, it was passed almost unanimously, which is unusual for an opposition bill.

The aim of the bill, as Kert explains, "is to ensure that the price of a book sold online is higher than one sold by an independent bookshop". The government puts it slightly differently, stating that the purpose of the amendment is to "restrict predatory behaviour". Online booksellers now represent the third-largest trading network in France, behind independent bookshops and big cultural chains (such as Fnac), both of which have 23% market share. In 2012 the internet accounted for 17% of sales of "general literature", with Amazon taking 70% of this market, well ahead of Fnac and other online vendors.

"E-trade now holds a 20% share of the market for printed books and is putting increasing pressure on bookshops," says Vincent Chabault, a researcher at Paris Descartes University.

French bookshops have been slow to respond to the internet. Despite being represented by a single body, the French Booksellers Association (SLF), they have focused their efforts on maintaining their independence, and have failed to agree on a common website for online sales. The only venture of this sort, 1001libraires.com, was a commercial disaster that cost the trade almost €2m ($2.6m). These days the cost of launching a site is much too steep for an independent bookseller. So some large shops – such as Mollat in Bordeaux or Sauramps in Montpellier – and chains such as Gibert, based in Paris, or Decitre in Lyon now have their own websites. Bookshops in and around eastern Paris have formed the Librest collective (librest.com), and Charles Kermarec, the former head of Dialogues, a bookstore in Brest, Brittany, has launched a site (leslibraires.fr) supported by shops all over the country. "All bookshops are losing money at present, even if they have an internet outlet, but at the same time they cannot afford not to be represented online," says Guillaume Husson, the head of SLF.

The new amendment should reduce Amazon's competitive advantage and ease the financial pressure on Fnac. Free postage, which is a key feature of Amazon's strategy, costs the company an estimated $5.1bn worldwide, SLF alleges, condemning the practice as a form of dumping.

In response, Amazon France said that it makes "more than 70% of its sales with remainders" and that it is more "complementary" rather than "in competition" with French booksellers, who sell mainly new books. It also suggested that, by raising the price of books, the amendment would be bad news for consumers.

Grant to aid booksellers

A new head is to be appointed for France's National Book Centre. On taking office his or her top priority will be to convene a board meeting and release funds allocated by the government to help retail booksellers. The €11m ($14.5m) package, announced in March, will double support (rising to €2m) for online trading. The Institute for Funding Films and Cultural Industries will receive €5m to help bookshops manage cashflow, with a further €4m given to the Association for the Development of Creative Booksellers to assist the transfer of bookselling businesses.

This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material from Le Monde